Transparent
by X Lunatic Charm X
Summary: Nezumi lies awake with his thoughts, but no matter how much as he wishes he could blend into the perpetual darkness that fills their underground hideaway, he can't hide from his little prince. Fluffy cuddle-fic, light NezuShi, and some of the deepening bonds between them. Will be a three-shot fic, rating won't increase.
1. Transparent

I don't own No. 6

Just some fluffy drabble to empty out my mind for a while.

The small underground room smothered in inky blackness every night. No windows allowed moonlight to filter in, and the flickering candles beside the lamp had been snuffed before bed. One wouldn't know that the morning sun had risen if a small mouse hadn't squeaked its alarm at daybreak. Nonetheless, in this perpetual darkness, Nezumi swore he could see Shion's snowy hair sharing the pillow next to his own. He felt the desperate urge to stroke it gently, like one might a cat. Rats shouldn't like cats, he thought absentmindedly, laying curled against the other body for warmth and, dare he admit it, comfort.

Shion hadn't been here for long, but the more time he spent in the naïve boy's company the more drawn to him he grew. _Drawn to him_. He had told Shion that a word such as _drawn_ was a weighty, important word. One only to be used for a special, irreplaceable person in your life. Deep down, he knew it fit. At this point he couldn't imagine an empty bed every night, or coming home from work to an empty house instead of a smiling boy and a pot of over-seasoned soup for dinner.

Shion muttered something unintelligible and rolled over in Nezumi's arms to face him, slowly blinking awake. "Nezumi?" he called softly into the darkness, feeling a fluttering heartbeat against him instead of the slow, calm beat of a sleeping person. "Why are you awake?"

"I could ask you the same thing, your Majesty," Nezumi smirked. Before Shion could reply, his head was pulled forward and buried in the crook of Nezumi's shoulder and collarbone. He didn't resist, understanding that if the other wanted to cuddle, something must have been off. He intertwined his legs with longer ones, wrapping his arms tightly around Nezumi's waist, and attempted to look up.

"What's wrong?"

A heavy sigh escaped pale lips, which frightened the rat. He'd been going against his teachings all too often as of late. "Nothing that should concern a little prince such as yourself. Simply too many thoughts running around tonight."

Shion lay silently for a moment, before almost whispering. "You're worried, aren't you?" He pressed a hand to Nezumi's heart, memorizing the pulse beneath his fingertips. "But your heart is beating, and you feel warm. So what do you have to be anxious about?"

Nezumi had to admit that on several occasions he had discovered that a sleepy Shion could be much more eloquent than an alert one, but it unnerved him nevertheless. He continued to stroke the soft locks nuzzled against his chest and took a calming breath. "If I ever leave, don't listen to every philosophic voice that calls you." He could sense the confusion painting Shion's face with these words, and fully anticipated the reply.

"Where are you going, Nezumi?" his sentence was broken by a yawn, and the rat stroked his scarred cheek with the back of his hand.

"Don't worry. I don't want to leave this charming snake," he exhaled softly, pressing a light kiss to the top of smooth white hair. His actions were so uncharacteristically gentle, Shion hardly knew how to react. Instead, his arms tightened around the thin, muscular yet slightly malnourished waist and he looked up to press a chaste kiss to faintly chapped lips above him.

Nezumi's haunting voiced echoed words he remembered uttering all too well. "Was that a good night kiss?" He felt Shion shake his head against his chest.

"A promise. I won't leave you. You won't have to sleep alone in this bed, and you won't have to come home with no one to welcome you back. That's what you're worried about, right? Separation?"

Though it wasn't quite the mark, the point hit close enough. Nezumi made a noise of recognition in the back of his throat and rolled over, pulling Shion to lay on top of him. The weight and warmth were comfortable, and the albino didn't object. He took one last deep breath, feeling the emotional weight lifted off his chest. Emotions were too foreign of a concept. They couldn't be analyzed as easily as a story or a play when they wrestled around in the confines of his own mind, so he typically opted to ignore them rather than expend the energy to untangle them. But Shion made it easier to cope with.

"My little prince wouldn't leave me willingly, but if he doesn't exercise some caution he may break that noble promise."

Sheepishly, Shion turned to face the wall. "I'll see what I can do. I'm learning quickly as it is." Another yawn interrupted him, and Nezumi held the boy tighter. "I understand you so much better when you're not acting so emotionless," he murmured.

Nezumi cut him off promptly, out of habit if nothing else. "Time to sleep. You have to wash dogs in the morning." Before he could reply, Shion fell back to sleep soundly, using Nezumi as his pillow. He combed black hair back from his face with his fingers before pulling the shared blanket over both bodies, and slipping into his own sleep until the shrill squeaking woke him up.

Where no sun shone resided a tiny world of blankets and body heat, the one and only space where Nezumi dared let his carefully constructed fortress slip and his feelings to spill out. Only Shion would be there, non-judgmental with precise answers that nullified his weaknesses. He didn't have to worry about the light shining on his fragility of spirit to prove the existence of faults; he could pretend defenselessness was nothing more than a dream. Shion's small arms were tightly wound around him as his breathing evened out slowly, and Nezumi could only wish that the seemingly-eternal night truly would never end.


	2. Phantom

Dusk had painted the sky a fiery orange by the time Shion walked through the bakery's door that evening. The past week had kept him at work until nightfall with committee meetings and council emergencies. Admittedly, he hadn't imagined that the task of rebuilding No. 6 would be so daunting. Toeing his shoes off, he tossed his briefcase of reports and his jacket to the ground. The lingering aroma of baking bread and the wafting one of stew rushed to his head, and suddenly he felt famished.

A twinge of longing thrummed through his chest but he quickly shook it off. The flash of entering a small underground room and a scrap of the memory of bubbling soup were enough to bring him to his knees some days, but Shion was bound and determined to repress them. Here, Karan cooked his supper in the evenings just like when he was younger. She was the only one in the house with him, and she joked and asked about his day whether he was coming home from elementary school or returning from a day's work.

"Shion, is that you?" his mother's sweet voice carried from the kitchen, and Shion called out back.

"I'm home, mom," he found her setting two places at the small dining room table, and he immediately relieved the plates from her hands so she could return to the stew on the stove.

She smiled gratefully and Shion sat down. "How was work today, honey? More logistic headaches?"

"The usual. The departments only argue with each other. We're almost at a standstill, and I can't convince them to compromise." He rolled his shoulders back and heaved a sigh that wracked his small frame. Karan hadn't seen, or she would have tossed him a disapproving glance at his stress level.

"There's always a third option in the middle, isn't there?" she reasoned, setting the pot in the center of the table.

"Nezumi wouldn't agree with you on that one," he informed her casually. Karan never

tired of hearing Shion tell stories about the rat. It was insight to a world that she had never experienced, even though her son had. And Nezumi had brought that son safely back to her despite all odds. She figured it pained Shion to talk about his friend since he had left suddenly (and they had seemed so attached), so she never pressed, but always listened intently whenever he chose to mention him.

"Oh? And why not?"

"Because he only sees in black and white. There was always only inside the wall and outside. Even I was an outsider to him," Shion chuckled, a slightly rueful tone tingeing the act. It was more and more difficult every day, mentioning Nezumi nonchalantly and spooning warm stew into his mouth after work.

Karan was silent for a moment as she read the stress and pain on her son's face. She knew that Shion thought he was hiding his longing for Nezumi, but she was tired of seeing that ached expression glossed over his soft face.

"Honey, haven't you ever thought about moving on?" Karan's concerned question sent needles through Shion. "You're so consumed with reconstructing this city, and when you finally get your mind off of work it's back on Nezumi. It's possible that he won't come back, and I don't want to see you so distressed that he's gone." Her words of tough love had always held merit, but this time Shion disagreed.

He shook his head, the snowy locks his mother had only recently adjusted to swishing with the motion. "No, he'll be back." It was as simple a fact as the sky was blue or the grass green that Nezumi would uphold his promise and return to his side. But suddenly the room felt too warm and he stood up, blood rushing to his head in a dizzy spell. "I'm going to bed. It's been a long day."

Without another word on the matter, he placed his bowl in the sink and ascended the stairs. "Don't forget to close your window," Karan reminded as she sat at the table staring at the flickering candles around her, a still standard here in what formally stood as Lost Town. Shion may not have wanted to hear it, but his health was her main concern. She could only hope that her son came around to letting go, or that the part of his life he felt missing came back soon.

oOo

Shion fell into the small single bed without changing into pajamas only after shutting the window above the small desk. The feelings straining his chest scared him, even if that hadn't been his mother's intention. Nezumi had been gone for almost three years. Even Shionn was older now. Three years left him as no longer the abandoned infant, so he was looked after by Inukashi and raised by the dogs inhabiting the crumbled hotel. Karan had difficulty letting go of the baby, but realized that running a bakery while chasing a toddler was easier said than done.

Shion felt weak. Night after night, the same dreams plagued him. Sometimes the chains that tied Nezumi to him fell as a burden. He'd often jolt upwards in shock, panting and drenched in cold sweat. His mother didn't even bother to call to him every time he screamed in his sleep anymore, it had become so commonplace. This night he couldn't even tell where his thoughts blended into dreams as he fell into a restless sleep.

He looked around and absorbed the sight of heaps of corpses piled up, blood constantly trickling down, and raking screams assaulting his ears as harshly as his sanity. Glancing down, Nezumi lay bleeding in his arms and the shrill panic of the thought: _He's going to die _rattled his brain. Suddenly the lifeless shell across the room fell with a dull thud, and the gun set heavy and blood-slicked in his grip. Shion thrashed in his sleep, little moans and whimpers escaping his parted lips. Shion couldn't remember the last time he had slept soundly.

That was a lie. He never suffered these when he had slept with Nezumi.

There was a distinction between those nightmares and the ones currently. When they had slept together Shion had dreamt of his mother, of Safu being kidnapped, of being drug down to a Hell that was more brutal than the Correctional Facility. But as soon as he began to struggle they would smooth over, a hauntingly sweet voice overtaking the images searing his mind. Shion never recognized consciously what that voice was; it sounded like a wind carrying his fears away. But even cocooned in darkness, that voice would render the image of those stony, grey eyes. Eyes that had turned him into a poet before he could even ask the rat's name.

Tonight Shion's nightmares were once again broken in a way he only held memories of.

The scenes faded into darkness that reminded him of so many nights in that tiny, underground room he and Nezumi had eaten, slept, fought, made amends, and even danced together in. He could even feel a fluttering heartbeat near his own. He imagined the sensation of gentle, calloused fingers brushing the matted hair from his shut eyes after tracing along his scar, and sighed. His mind even conjured the rare, low snicker he'd recognize anywhere that answered his exhale.

Reveling in fantasies such as these wasn't something Shion was proud of, but he did it all the same. He knew deep down that his mother was right; One day he'd have to give up the memory of Nezumi. But it wasn't the time for that yet. Not while he still held faith in their reunion.

A quiet squeaking stirred him. It didn't seem to be his imagination. He hadn't heard a familiar mouse in ages, not since Tsukiyo had disappeared in search of his master with a note no more than seven words.

_Please come back soon._

He never received a reply.

But the squeaking soon silenced and Shion rolled over and fell deeper into sleep without another thought, mildly notorious for being difficult to wake up. It wasn't like Nezumi was really there to comfort him. 

oOo

Karan peeked into her son's room to find him quieted down, curled up and sleeping soundly. That was unusual. She'd heard his night terror from the room over, and though she was used to his affliction she usually checked in when she heard him yell out. She was about to leave again when her gaze was averted by the billowing curtains above the desk. Outside it was lightly drizzling, a grey mist hanging overhead, and the sun threatened to emerge from the horizon, already painting the sky with pastels. She noticed damp fingerprints she assumed to be Shion's lacing the windowsill as she lowered it softly. He was 19 now but still acted like a child. Hadn't she told him to close the window before bed?


End file.
